Leading retailer and distributor of auto parts successfully migrates from Cognos Impromptu 7 to Cognos 8

Customer:A leading retailer and distributor of auto parts and accessories.

ChallengeOur customer was interested in eliminating inefficient, error-prone reporting and the resolving of numerous performance issues that were inherent to their existing Cognos Impromptu 7 reporting solution. Their legacy solution...

A predictive business solutions company that specializes in end-to-end Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Enterprise Performance Management and the enabling right-time Data Integration that transforms an enterprise into an agile, Predictive Business.

Used a client based tool that made data integrity maintenance difficult and at times, unresponsive and unable to address data validation; Used a database based security model that is difficult to manage and maintain; Had existing Impromptu reports using hot files, macros, and Excel files for reporting; Structure, data and formatting relative to producing reports was overly complex; Was error prone as many existing Impromptu reports contained numerous errors as a result of incompatibility; and Incorporated existing Impromptu reports which had many limitations in terms of report format, report data and report output.

The scope of the project covered a wide spectrum of functional areas and included:

Installation, configuration and performance tuning of Cognos 8.3 to requirements; Migration of existing reports and catalogs to reap the benefits of new Cognos 8; Ensuring the accuracy of the administrative aspects relative to migration and consistency of user access and security with that of existing systems in order to minimize downtime; Resolution of security issues resulting from a client based impromptu solution to that of a web based Cognos 8 solution; Providing training to end users for a seamless transition from Cognos Impromptu 7 to that of Cognos 8.3; Additional functionality gained by the business without compromising its data integrity; Fine tuning performance while addressing data validation; Delivery of a Cognos based security model complete with the training of the users to ensure adaptation of change; and The leveraging of more advanced functionality found in Framework Manger and Report Studio.

SolutionThe Customer chose PREDICTif for migration of their existing IBM Cognos Impromptu 7 to that of IBM Cognos 8. PREDICTif demonstrated the necessary depth of experience in designing, building and delivering scalable BI solutions the customer required in a solution provider.

The PREDICTif team, comprised of IBM Cognos Certified consultants, used PREDICTifs proprietary methodology to deliver the project, in three main phases we refer to as: Foundation, Implementation and Evolution. The Foundation Phase established the readiness of people, infrastructure and process to ensure both PREDICTif and customer teams were immediately productive at the inception of the project. The Implementation Phase delivered the solutions that met the business objectives of the project. The Evolution Phase ensured customers self sufficiency post production. Foundation Phase

Reviewed the existing process and collected existing reports, data sources, and information needed for the process as a part of Discovery Stage; Generated a detailed Migration plan after numerous planning sessions with the customer; Provided foundational training of Cognos 8 to customers personnel to ready them for the participation in requirement gathering, design workshops and testing; and Installed and configured Cognos 8 and made all the needed integrations to dependent data sources within DEV, TEST and PROD environments.

Implementation Phase

Applied PREDICTifs best practices in all designs of reports, metadata and data models to achieve consistency and meet industry standards; Completed the migration of all the catalogs and reports that are free of functional errors, ambiguous relationships and loop joins; Created many reports from scratch as those reports lost the formatting and data formats post migration to guarantee end users the exact same report formats; Validated all the reports manually with the Impromptu reports for consistency in report data, report formats, and report output; Produced numerous reports of medium to high complexity which included calculations, data based on numerous groupings, multiple prompts, filters, conditional formatting, charts, various associations, master-detail relationships, date-time calculations, and heavy formatting; Created an efficient security solutions for user access that leveraged Cognos 8 security features; and Worked with customers personnel throughout the projects to ensure knowledge transfer to the customer.

Evolution PhaseCreated custom training materials on Report Studio and Cognos Connection as well as administered classroom training sessions to power users and end users to ensure a smooth transition from Cognos Series 7 to Cognos 8; and Produced detailed documents for new report authoring and overall system support and maintenance to guarantee customer self sufficiency post production.

ResultsPREDICTif successfully delivered a solution that met the required functionality and training requirements for the Customers self sufficiency. Produced a successful migration of all Models and Reports from Cognos Impromptu Series 7.1 to Cognos 8.3 as well as a user-friendly, refined Framework Manager Model that enabled customer personnel to create ad-hoc reports more easily; Completed deployment of all reports under budget, ahead of schedule and exceeded customers expectations; Established an efficient approach for providing access to each user based on roles and groups in Cognos 8; Provided end users the required visibility into their data and a more efficiency related to creating the required reports; and Enabled end users to query and build reports, create ad-hoc reports and use various other functions built into Report Studio.